When Your Code Gets Held Hostage

It started as a leap of faith.
Jacob, co-founder of a small SaaS startup in Denver, had spent months pitching, refining, and finally securing funding for his product idea. He found a development agency that came highly recommended, with a smooth proposal and a promise: “We handle everything, you focus on growth.”

The first few weeks felt like a relief. The agency shared a detailed roadmap. They set up a private Git repository. Jacob’s tech lead had commits, pull requests, early builds. They said they would host everything internally for now but would transfer ownership once the project went live. That sounded fine. Actually, it sounded smart.

As the months passed progress seemed real. There were demos, features working, an internal test build. But cracks began to show. The weekly updates became less detailed. Slack messages lagged. When Jacob asked for access to the repository and deployment environment he got the same response: “Once we finish the next milestone we’ll hand it over.”

Still, Jacob trusted the agency. After all, they were delivering. Until one day the milestone was declared complete and they needed the final payment for the transfer. Jacob made the payment. But the handover never came.

The agency said there were “unexpected complications.” Then “scope adjustments” that required more work. The repo access changed. The deployment script ran on a machine under their control. Jacob’s cloud account credentials had been linked but not transferred. When he asked for full code he was told: “Working version delivered, source will follow.”

And then silence. The agency went quiet. Emails unanswered. Their Slack status inactive. Jacob realised he did not own his code. His product was live to some extent but trapped. He could not hire a new team without struggling through undocumented code and hidden dependencies. He could not move the product forward without coordinating through the agency. His startup lost months of time. Money flowed without progress.

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When Jacob finally detached from the situation he and his team had to rebuild much of the product. They recreated their architecture on a new repository. They rewrote modules. They migrated data. What should have been a six-month build stretched into eighteen. The competitive window closed. Investors were frustrated. The team morale dropped.

This is more than poor delivery. This is lost autonomy. Your product, your idea, becomes someone else’s hold-over. It happens. And it happens quietly. Contracts, sign-offs, initial trust all mask a deeper risk: what if you cannot access what you paid for?

How We Do It at Roro

At Roro, we make sure our clients have full visibility from the start. The moment a project begins, the codebase is shared. You can log in, see progress, and understand how things are shaping up at any point in time.

We believe the product you’re building should always stay in your hands. Whether it’s a proof of concept or a production-ready app, the code, assets, and documentation belong to you.

If you ever choose to move your work elsewhere, you can do that without friction. We’ll help you transition smoothly because transparency is what builds long-term trust - not control.

If you’ve found yourself in a similar situation, reach out. We can walk you through what your options are and help you take back ownership of your product.